I keep thinking about the empty house and the empty heart of it and how it’s my fault or feels like it anyway we humans are so quick to assign blame to ourselves or others when really the universe just unfolds as it will I mean my kids they need me here you know constant attention constant little demands for snacks or stories or help finding that one specific Lego brick that’s ALWAYS missing how can I leave them to go sit with my mother in that sprawling suburbia that feels designed to isolate people further and further apart from each other it’s like the houses are all just boxes to keep the loneliness in I remember her saying once when I was little “oh darling your job is to be happy” and I remember thinking even then how does one DO that how do you just CHOOSE happiness like it’s a sweater But then she calls sometimes her voice so small and frail over the phone saying things like “oh it’s just so quiet here” or “I wish someone would visit” and I can hear the unspoken part the “I wish YOU would visit” hanging there in the air between us like a phantom limb and I feel this terrible twisting in my gut because I know it’s true I know she’s alone and I know I could do something about it but what do I do with these small insistent hands tugging at my shirt demanding my presence right here right now it feels like a zero-sum game like someone always loses And I think about the future sometimes about when my own children are grown and gone and I’m sitting in my own quiet house my own quiet suburb maybe I’ll be calling them then my voice small and frail and will they feel this same agonizing pull this duty versus desire this impossible choice that feels less like a choice and more like a punishment for existing and caring for others for so long it’s like our identity just dissolves into the needs of others until there’s nothing left to recognize ourselves by I just wonder if anyone ever truly reconciles these things or if we just carry them with us until we can’t anymore a lifetime of half-made decisions and unfulfilled longings that’s just the human condition I suppose a constant state of almost but never quite enough for anyone especially ourselves